Labour’s shadow team visit Methil

Lori Cormack

The full Scottish Labour shadow cabinet were in Fife on Monday hot on the campaign trail ahead of the party’s one day conference this weekend.

And leader Jim Murphy MSP even made his way along to Levenmouth, with parliamentary candidate for the area, Melanie Ward.

The pair met pupils at Kirkland High School, before heading along to the site of the new Levenmouth High School in Buckhaven, which is due to be complete for the new term beginning in August 2016.

Speaking to the Mail ahead of his visit, Mr Murphy said: “I’m really looking forward to visiting the new campus.

“We have a problem in Scotland - and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise - where too many working class kids, despite the efforts of their teachers and the families, do not do well enough in school to go to the top universities, while kids who come from more prosperous families do better at school.

“I want to close that attainment gap. The visit to Levenmouth to see everything being built from a-fresh is really exciting, and I think we can learn from this. I want us to learn from what we see and what we hear today in Levenmouth and take that across Scotland.”

I want us to learn from what we see and what we hear today in Levenmouth and take that across Scotland.

Keen to publicise the efforts of the party to do all that it can for Fife’s young people, Mr Murphy also spoke about his pledge on the living wage for all in Scotland, which he believes will offer a “helping hand” to thousands of young people “discarded by the Tories”.

He said: “We will call time on exploitative zero hours contracts and enforce the National Minimum Wage across Scotland. The days of young Scots in the workplace being exploited, and trapped in a low pay, low skill future, are over.

“But we want to go further, and make sure that young Scots get not just the bare minimum in their pay packet but a decent wage to help them get on in life. That’s why we will promote a living wage.”